As I finish my own tweaks, I ask all of you a question. Does Lyrica know any of you better than mere acquaintances? It is small small town so she obviously knows all of you, but my question is how well? Are any of you near the age of 18? Would any of you been a bully to her in your childhood, or possibly a trusted friend? Her faith has been a secret for the most part, because she is not sure how others would take that information. I am wondering who she would have shared that with and who among you would have been accepting of such a forgiving deity as Sarenrae?

I've got a buddy who grew up in the hinterlands of WA and literally was schooled in a one-room log cabin schoolhouse. So much of what I say here is drawn from his recollections of the reality of that sort of rough & rustic environment.

What limited schooling you received, augmented by your parents' instruction at home, took place in the town Assembly Hall. It was a single-room, single 'teacher' affair with multiple 'grade levels'. The older students would be expected to help out the younger children as de facto teaching assistants. Also, there were never so many kids to play with that cliques could really form. Kids that were 'close' in age would certainly interact more. So while Jak would be a closer peer to Allegra Strom (since they are even closer in age), he would certainly have known Lyrica. And given they are only a couple of years apart - socializing, flirting, and whatnot would be extremely likely.

Mind you - given Jak's reputation for trouble, it is possible the Strom girls (if they were squeaky clean) may have avoided getting entangled with him. I'll leave that to the players to decide. :)

The point where you'd start seeing enough of an 'interest gap' that you'd know but not actively socialize with the younger kids would be at differences of 6 years or greater - i.e. a 16 year old has so little in common with a 10 year old that they wouldn't mix most of the time. Doesn't mean they were hostile or ignored each other, just that they had different peer groups.

Regarding religion... folks that move that far into the wilds are fiercely independent, think for themselves, and generally hold to their own opinions. The Stroms worshipping Sarenrae is not, in itself, a secret or unknown. It is quite likely there are other Sarenrae worshippers in town and Lyrica's father as a lay priest likely presides over their worship meetings without anyone in town being upset. The majority of townsfolk probably worship more nature-aligned deities but that isn't a problem either. What wouldn't be generally known is the depth of their commitment to Sarenrae or Lyrica being a Paladin. The thing that would NOT go over in a town of fiercely independent and pragmatic folks is anyone proselytizing their faith as the 'true one' or appearing 'fanatical' in their devotion.

When I get the ages of all the characters, I'll be able to assign rough ages to everyone else in town and give you rough ideas of who your 'peers' are. As you get older and take on more 'adult' responsibilities, the importance of age lessens as your 'role' comes more to define who you are. For instance, if Marcus is 30 (picking a number), that would help to define who he schooled with and knew personally. But as he is a 'father' of two kids... that trumps his age. The other adults with kids, regardless of age, would consider him part of their 'group'. So everyone in town 'belongs' to multiple groups - peers by age, family, extended family by marriage, and role.

I did indeed short myself. I'll see about getting them distributed. As far as knowledges go, not sure what to add on my end. Maybe history (though I'm only basing that on being older than most story-wise). I'd have to find a trait that adds it as a class skill. Or local actually. Local might make more sense. I'll see what I can do. Still have one trait open anyway.

No worries, Ez... and I wasn't suggesting you should spend your points on Knowledge skills. Spend them any way you like. Those were unrelated thoughts. I was making sure you had spent your ranks and it occurred to me that I hadn't checked out the balance of the Know skills.

Lyle Rallo - (male 19yo) 2nd son and 1 of 5 kids in the Rallo family. The elder Rallo boys (Pence and Lyle) are/were tight with Jak Howell and often got switched for the same offenses, though Jak was clearly the leader. The Rallo boys' shenanigans have largely been eclipsed by their youngest sister - the notorious Ritti 'Red' Rallo.

Renata Ruske - (female 18yo) Youngest of the two Ruske girls - less out-going and buxom than her sister. Probably Lyrica's closest friend (outside her family) along with Marisol Howell. The Ruskes are related by marriage to the Druiminn/Finiose family (Ezekiel).

Ellie Wynn - (female ~yo) A close friend to Lyrica and youngest sister of Aerik, would have been 16 this year had she not died from Swamp Fever three years ago.

Lohegrin Zirk - (male 17yo) Eldest of the four surviving Zirk children. Has a longstanding (from his perspective) crush on Lyrica.

Jak does one final visual check of his HUD readouts. Seeing all greens, his voice crackles over the radio signal, "Wing 3 is locked and ready to rock. Jak is green for go." He taps twice on the side on the fighter's canopy, giving his flight crew the thumbs up as it slides closed.

As for ID'ing most monsters, Jak only currently has 2 knowledge ranks (local and arcana). I could lose arcana for Planes, though I'm scratcing my head as to why he'd have this knowledge.

Stormraven, does the land from which Jak's mother came have an emphasis on Lore of the Planes? Might she have told her little boy stories of angels, devils, demons, and other extra-planar creatures as part of his bed-time routine?

Metawise, if it is an undead-heavy campaign, knowledge religion would be helpful. That way me and marcus can handle animals and other nature stuff (fey i think?), and you and Lyrica can handle undead and whatnot.

if eze takes arcana that works for what, magical beasts? and dungeoneering is aberrations right?

Yep, adn all of those are handled by at least one person. Planes is the only one that's not. I'm not sure if we'll see many opponents of that ilk, but I don' think devils and demons would be out of place given what we know of our adventures. Maybe not common like undead, but certainly not out-of-theme for a horror game.

Yah, i think i'm the only real solution there short of making someone else take a trait... which is lame.

I'll wait to haer Stormy's thoughts on Jak's mom telling him stories of otherworldly entities to fill the gap. If we can come up with something there, I'll switch a rank from Knowledge :Arcana to Knowledge: Planes.

As this is a sandbox game I haven't planned fifteen steps ahead because I anticipate you guys will wander off the basic storyline. In fact, I've built this thing to enable you to easily wander off and come back when you choose. So it is difficult to say how useful Charm Person will be. Depending on how/where you choose to roam from the basic story, CP could prove useful - definitely in its non-combat applications but periodically in combat as well.

If you focus on the basic plotline, there will be less benefit to Charm Person. In the early stuff I've got planned, CP will probably get little to no use.

Don't feel that you have to limit yourself to thematically appropriate spell choices. It's a dangerous world and as frontier people on the ragged edge of civilization, you'd arm yourselves pragmatically and as best you can.

Re: K:Planes

Story-telling is a typical Mylhavian leisure time activity when people are buttoned-up for the night or sitting out the long winters in-doors. Mostly, these stories revolve around the very real threats in Mylhaven (a variety of creatures) and parables. Jak's mother in particular would be able to spin many, many tales about earthly and unearthly creatures of all sorts so K:Planes would make sense.

I know the optimization mindset inclines players to stick to their class skills to get the most bang for the buck. But there are benefits to taking non-class skills, particularly ones that can't be used 'untrained'... Having a 15% chance of making a critical knowledge check is better (to my mind) than having no chance whatsoever.

Meta Thoughts

How to put this...

I bore easily, SO...

Variety is truly the spice of life for me as a DM, AND

Players should worry when an evil bastardy DM sprouts a cheshire grin.

Yes, you will be encountering a good load of undead as opposed to a standard campaign where you may encounter undead only 10% of the time. Undead-Heavy to me means '>15% undead'. You will also be encountering evil fey, outer plane creatures, inner plane creatures, demented constructs, fell beasts, vicious killers, insidious traps, combo platters with all of the above, and anything else that my diseased brain comes up with that makes me chuckle.

Now you may be saying to yourself (Meta Hat firmly on head):

Realistically, we don't need K:Planes at 1st level because there really aren't any demons or devils that can bounce into the Prime Material to raise a ruckus. At least there are none that are an appropriate encounter for 1st level characters. Right, Mr. Evil Bastardy DM?

That is pretty much true... if I were limiting myself to what's in the Bestiary. Unfortunately, for you, you have a DM that likes to scribble outside the lines... particularly where the Bestiary is concerned.

well, and beyodn that, I don't like the idea that Jak would -- at some point down the road -- suddenly be inspired to leran about the creatuers of the planes without having a reason. I'd rather just build in a backsgory reason for him to have had it all along.